Emmerdale's Marlon Dingle suffers stroke in agonising health battle storyline

Emmerdale next week.The cheerful Woolpack chef will undergo a serious health battle in order to raise awareness of the warning signs that come before a stroke and to shed light on how the condition can impact others.The long-running ITV soap will focus primarily on Marlon (Mark Charnock) and tell the narrative from his character’s perspective.Marlon's harrowing story has been produced with the support of the charity, the Stroke Association, who has worked closely with Emmerdale’s scriptwriters, research and production teams in order to provide a realistic portrayal.The story will also explore how Marlon's diagnosis will affect his loved ones and the wider community.Commenting on the scenes, Emmerdale Producer, Laura Shaw said: "Warm, witty and kindhearted Marlon is undoubtedly one of Emmerdale's most loved characters and with Mark Charnock's sheer skill, craft and incredible range, it felt totally right to play such an incredibly important story as this, with Marlon highlighting that a stroke can happen at any time and showing the catastrophic consequences it can have on the person affected and their whole family."Laura also shared her disbelief regarding the number of stroke survivors in the UK.She added: "When we first started researching this storyline I was shocked by the stark statistics that the UK alone has 1.3 million stroke survivors, so we knew we wanted to do those people and their families justice by showing the raw reality of a stroke as truthfully and honestly as we could."Laura added that extensive research was done in order to reflect the painful reality that many stroke survivors go through.The soap producer explained: "As the story unfolds, we follow the tragic and heartbreaking long-lasting.